The Man of the People

An awesome podcast episode that I loved is “The Man of the People” on Reply All. In only 42 minutes it tells the nearly incredible true story about a charlatan who made millions by surgically implanting goat testicals in men, almost became governor of Kansas to escape censure, moved to the Mexico side of the border to broadcast in the US without US oversight, made country and western music a national thing, by his quackery provoked the creation of the AMA (American Medical Association), and invented commercial radio. This podcast has the distinction of being the first podcast to be turned into a Hollywood movie, starring Robert Downey Jr. If you want to know what podcasts are about, try this one. — KK

Recomendo is a weekly newsletter that gives you 6 brief personal recommendations of cool stuff.

Curated by Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder and Claudia Dawson, our goal is to give our readers a weekly list of 6 things we love — travel tips, books, TV shows, clothes, tools, websites, podcasts, and so on. We want people to be able to read the entire newsletter in 90 seconds or less, with no fluff or wheel spinning.